For Athletes & Coaches

YOU: Stronger, Smarter, Faster

Welcome to our Athletes & Coaches Resource Page!

We have put together a compilation of articles relevant to athletes, coaches, and anyone looking to take their performance to the next level. From injury prevention to performance enhancement, we’re working to build a comprehensive library of resources relevant to YOU. Keep checking back as this page grows, and be sure to contact us if there’s a topic you’d like to see us include.

Athletic Basics:

Concussion ManagementConcussion Management is an important topic in the field of sports medicine, and we are pleased to now offer treatment for this condition. Ensuring full recovery of the brain before return to sport or activity is critical. If athletes return to play before the brain has had a chance to fully recover, a less intense blow or hit could cause the same if not more damage to brain tissue, with longer more intense impact on their life…

The New Age of Stretching: A Look at Dynamic FlexWhen we think of “traditional” stretching for athletic purposes, you may envision prolonged poses for areas like your hamstrings, quads, IT band, etc. This is static stretching. There has been a lot of debate in sports medicine as to the effectiveness and appropriateness of this form of stretching…

Can Stretching Really Be Bad?The prevailing medical opinion is that for sports like dance, gymnastics and track, where extreme motions are needed, stretching is still highly valued. In most sports it is recognized that a dynamic warm up of the muscles and motions used in that sport does the best job of preventing injury. Stretching to address an individual’s specific flexibility deficit is best done after activity.

Hydration Tips for Athletes In the context of sports nutrition, hydration is an often overlooked component of a healthy diet. Water performs many functions in the body…

Injury Prevention:

Golf: Injury Prevention Techniques that Could Save Your Season While many think of golf as a fairly relaxed or low impact game, it can actually be quite physically demanding, and if your body is not properly prepared, it can cause a host of injuries. Research has shown golf to have a surprisingly high rate of injury, with PGA tour players averaging two injuries per year, and as many as one third of elite touring athletes playing injured at any given time.1,2…

Common Running Injuries:Recognizing common running injuries early, and learning the proper way to treat them can get you back in your favorite sneakers and out on your favorite trail soon.

Performance Enhancement:

Peaking for Maximum Performance Understanding and executing an effective training peak is an essential component for an athlete to be at their best possible performance level for competition…

Speed DevelopmentAlmost every sport involves an element of speed, whether it’s sprinting to a loose ball or flying past a competitor in the last hundred meters of a race, speed is a key component in nearly all sports…

Off-Season Training GainsOff-season training is one of the most beneficial ways to improve an athlete’s game. For the dedicated athlete that is always asking “What can I do to get better?” one answer is weight training…

Functional Movement Screen: Unlocking the Secret to PerformanceThe Functional Movement Screen (FMS) was originally developed in 1995 to collect “objective data for statistical analysis of human movement patterns with respect to functional performance and injury prevention.”1 Today FMS is widely used to train and prepare professional and elite level athletes to improve performance and reduce risk of injury. At Cioffredi & Associates we are now offering FMS to help athletes unlock the secret to increased performance…

Common Pain Conditions:

Plantar Fasciitis: The Pain That Won’t Go Away? Heel pain is a common complaint among approximately two million people per year, and nearly 10% of the population over a lifetime. The diagnosis for pain in the heel or arch of the foot is called plantar fasciitis. We’re always impressed when folks have indicated that their problem took a year to heal. Muscle and connective tissue usually heals much more quickly than that. Are there other factors that are stimulating the pain?…

Let’s Talk Feet! Ensuring a Good Foundation from the Ground Up When building a house, or a fitness program, you need a good foundation on which to build. And your skeletal system is no different. Keeping your feet healthy and happy is an important step to ensuring a good foundation for skeletal health. Here are some of the most common foot and ankle conditions that we treat in the clinic…

Knee Pain: Finding the SourceThe source of knee pain can be quite variable and complex. Accurate diagnosis of the cause of the pain is fundamental to providing appropriate treatment and getting lasting results…

Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome (Also Known As “Runner’s Knee”) Anterior knee pain is a common complaint among many people, especially among active individuals. Approximately 70% of anterior knee pain that comes from patellofemoral disorders will resolve with conservative treatment like physical therapy. Discussed below are some of these problems, causes, symptoms and what is addressed in physical therapy…

The Mystery of Tennis ElbowThe term ‘tennis elbow’ was first used in 1883 by H. P. Major in his paper “Lawn-tennis elbow,” and while it can be seen in sports that have repetitive movement of the elbow (such as tennis), the majority of people who get tennis elbow have never even stepped foot on a tennis court…

Tennis Elbow: Not Just for Tennis PlayersTennis Elbow, or Lateral Epicondylitis, is a common overuse injury that we see in the clinic. While it can be seen in sports that have repetitive movement of the elbow (such as tennis), the majority of people who get tennis elbow have never even stepped foot on a tennis court. According the American Physical Therapy Association, less than 5% of tennis elbow cases are tennis players…